Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.

Easy way to derib chard: Grab stem w/ left hand. With right hand loosely grip leaf where it begins on the stem and then briskly pull left hand and right hand apart. You will be left with stem in left and deribbed leaf in right. Unbelievably fast and easy.

you may make your own yogurt as we do as a Turkish expat living in Ukraine where it is really hard to find ‘real’ yoghurt…
here is the simple recipe:

1 liter of whole milk (>2% fat; mostly we prefer 1/2 cow + 1/2 goat or sheep)
4-5 table spoon of yoghurt. (for the first time, you may use ‘bio’ yoghurts of any brand… and then your own yoghurt)

Bring milk to boil.
Keep stirring to avoid scalding.
Pour the milk into a glass jar or an enamel pot, and put it in a sunny/warm location where it will be warm for 4 hours or so and will not be disturbed/moved..
In order to make sure it is kept warm, wrap the jar with some scarves
In a small bowl put 4-5 tbs of yogurt and 5 – 6 Tbs of warm milk and mix them well.
Pour this over the warm milk, and stir well
Cover the pot, and make sure the wrap around it is tightly sealed
After about 4 – 5 hours (depending on the warmth of the environment), check on your yogurt; if it is firm, your yogurt is ready for its next stage; fridge…
Be sure to refrigeriate the yogurt for at least overnigt. This will help it set and have firm yogurt.
(I usually try not to touch my yogurt for a full 24 hrs at least)

The stems are a great vegetable too. Cut into bite sized pieces. Blanche them in the same pot of boiling water after you remove the leaves for the tzatziki (to save energy & water). When ready to serve, saute them in olive oil with 2-4 minced garlic cloves. Sprinkle with salt & pepper. Opt some hot pepper flakes. This is especially pretty if you use rainbow swiss chard.

for way better results with the yogurt, prepare it the night before. place two paper towells in a collander or strainer, then pour all your yogurt in that. sit it atop a bowl to collect the water, and let it sit in your fridge overnight.

the result is extremely creamy yogurt and closer to the type they use in the mediterranean. :)